Soiled human hair is shampooed to remove sebum that is naturally secreted by the head as well as soil and other atmospheric contaminants that accumulate on the hair. Sebum, in particular, accumulates on the hair in a relatively short period of time leaving the hair with a greasy, dirty feel and poor manageability. The most effective shampoos for cleansing the hair for removal of the atmospheric contaminants and sebum, are those that contain high lather synthetic anionic detergents, such as the long chain alkyl sulfates, the partially ethoxylated long chain alkyl sulfates and the long chain sulfonates. These synthetic anionic detergents are very effective for cleansing the hair but, after rinsing with water, leave the hair with a dried touch, usually called "creak" and result in hair, when wet, that is in an extremely tangled and unmanageable after-shampoo condition.
Thoroughly cleansed hair is extremely difficult to comb, in either the wet or dry state because the individual hair fibers tend to snarl, kink, and interlock with each other. Particularly, prior to complete drying of thoroughly cleansed hair, in this after-shampoo stage, the hair is very difficult to comb or brush. Even after complete drying, the thoroughly cleansed hair remains difficult to comb or brush and does not set well. Thoroughly clean, dried hair also has undesirable electrostatic properties in a low humidity atmosphere that causes the hair to "fly away", thereby further reducing the combing or brushing property of the hair. Generally, these above-outlined problems that result from synthetic detergent cleansing of the hair, particularly in the high-lather synthetic anionic detergents, have been eleviated either by the after-shampoo treatment of the hair with hair conditioners, for example, in the form of a hair rinse, or by including hair conditioners directly within the shampoo composition.
After-shampoo hair conditioning compositions are easily formulated but are inconvenient to use because of the necessity of applying the conditioner to the hair in a separate stage, after shampooing. The prepartion of a conditioning shampoo has been more difficult because of inherent incompatibility problems between anionic surfactants and the cationic compounds that are good conditioning agents. Contact between an anionic surfactant and a cationic surfactant or cationic polymer produces a precipitate that forms immediately or causes an interaction between the anionic and cationic compounds that significantly reduces their respective cleaning and conditioning properties, and especially a very noticeable severe loss of foam attributed by the anionic cleansing surfactant. The reduction in cleansing and conditioning effectiveness is observed even in compositions wherein the anionic and cationic compounds do not precipitate from the composition but remain in solution or suspension. This incompatibility between an anionic surfactant and a cationic conditioning compound is well recognized by those skilled in the art. For example, Sagarin in Cosmetics, Interscience Publishers, Inc., New York, p. 538 (1957), states that anionic and cationic compounds cannot be used in combination because they react to form insoluble salts.
A partial solution to this incompatibility problem in the formulation of conditioning shampoos is exemplified by the following patents that disclose compositions that contain surfactants that are not anionic, e.g., non-ionics, amphoterics and zwitterionics together with cationic conditioning compounds: U.S. Pat. No. 3,849,348 to Hewitt; U.S. Pat. No. 3,990,991 to Gerstein; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,822,312 to Sato.
Another problem inherent in formulating a conditioning shampoo is an instability problem that results when water-insoluble conditioning agents are also included in the conditioning shampoo composition, such as the non-volatile silicones that are well recognized in the art as providing a degree of softness to the hair.
Silicones in shampoo compositions have been disclosed in a number of different patents: U.S. Pat. No. 2,826,551, Mar. 11, 1958 to Green; U.S. Pat. No. 3,964,500, Jun. 22, 1976 to Drakoff; U.S. Pat. No. 4,364,837, Dec. 21, 1982 to Pader; British Patent No. 849,433, Sep. 28, 1960 to Woolston; U.S.. Pat. No. 4,741,855 to Grote, et al.; U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,788,006 and 4,902,499 to Bolich, Jr. et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,704,272 to Oh et al. The silicones are well known to substantially reduce the foaming of anionic cleansing surfactants.
A particularly difficult problem to solve in silicone-containing conditioning shampoos is that of providing a conditioning shampoo that provides excellent cleansing of the hair while providing high foaming and, at the same time, also has excellent conditioning performance. The capability of providing excellent conditioning, cleansing and foam levels is achieved with the compositions of the present invention. In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, a complete breakthrough in the art is achieved in a composition that not only achieves excellent conditioning properties while retaining excellent cleansing and foam levels in a stable conditioning shampoo, but all of these properties are achieved in a mild shampoo that is gentle to the hands without including a long chain alkyl sulfate or sulfonate, or without the typically high levels, e.g., 10%.sup.+, of a long chain fully or partially ethoxylated alkyl sulfate cleansing detergent. Optionally, a number of materials can be included in the conditioning shampoos of the present invention for purposes of thickening and stabilization such as xanthan gum, long chain acyl derivatives, long chain amide or amine oxides, and long chain alkanolamides, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,788,006; 4,704,272; and 4,741,855, hereby incorporated by reference.